U.S. stocks lower on worries over Ukraine

Nasdaq suffers worst weekly decline since April 2013

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Friday’s modest losses for U.S. stocks capped the worst week since late January for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average as worries over the looming vote in Crimea weighed on sentiment.

The S&P 500
SPX, -1.54%
ended the day 5.21 points, or 0.3%, lower at 1,841.13, finishing below a technical level of 1,850 for the second day in a row. The index recorded a 2% loss over the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, -1.24%
dropped 43.22 points, or 0.3%, to 16,065.67, falling for the fifth consecutive day. The blue-chip index is down 2.4% over the week.

The Nasdaq Composite
COMP, -1.94%
shed 15.02 points, or 0.4%, to 4,245.40 and the 2.1% decline over the past week was the worst since April 2013.

Jitters in the market were most pronounced in the implied volatility as measured by CBOE Vix index, dubbed Wall Street’s fear gauge. The index jumped 9.5% to 17.8.

“Sentiment is all over the place because of the uncertainty from the outcome in Crimea over the weekend,” said Colin Cieszynski, senior market analyst at CMC Markets. “However, markets are using geopolitical uncertainty as an excuse to go lower as they are overly stretched and are due for a correction.”

Investors shrugged off reports on wholesale prices and consumer sentiment. U.S. wholesale prices fell for the first time in three months, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted a 0.2% increase. Consumer sentiment fell to the lowest reading since November.

Russia-Ukraine conflict, China worries

While global markets have been sensitive to the events in Ukraine, U.S. equities have showed resilience over the past week. Some strategists say a crisis in Crimea is already priced into the markets, while other contend that a vote favoring Russia may become a catalyst for selling that is overdue. Read: Markets in thin air as Ukraine, China fears grow.

Worries over China’s economy continued to simmer in the background as well. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch was among several investment banks that cut the outlook for growth there. It called for 7.3% growth this year, compared with a previous call of 8%. Société Générale said “something barely above 7% looks quite likely.”

Shares of General Mills Inc.
GIS, +0.07%
fell 2.4% after the company released a fresh outlook for the third quarter, saying it sees third-quarter adjusted earnings of 61 cents to 62 cents a share.

Shares of Liberty Media Corp.
US:LMCA
gained 7.2% after the company late Thursday said it would drop plans to buy the rest of Sirius XM Holdings Inc.
SIRI, -1.97%
of which it currently owns 53%. Liberty Media also said it would reclassify its common stock into two tracking stocks — one called Liberty Media Group and the other called Liberty Broadband Group — in a move that is expected to be completed in the third quarter.

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